What is the file system on iphone?

Question

Is it HFS, HFS+, HFSX? Is it the same in ipods, ipads and iphones, and across different versions of iOS?

Answer 1

It's HFSX.

According to "Mac OS X, IPod, and IPhone Forensic Analysis DVD Toolkit" book, the IPhone Partitioning scheme (which is quite similar to similar to Apple TV) contains:

1 - A first Master Boot Record partition (around 500mb),

2 - followed by an Apple_Free area,

3 - then a a first HFSX partition, which primarily stores the iPhone's operating system.

4 - Again, another Apple_Free area

5 - and finally the second HFSX partition holding all user data (apps, movies, pictures, whatever)

Answer 2

It would appear that iOS devices all use HFSX.

Answer 3

Coming very shortly this will no longer be the case.

As of iOS 10.3 all iOS devices will be automatically updated to use APFS (Apple File System).

Read more here :)

Answer 4

Here are some similarities between the two file systems (iOS and macOS):

Similarities:

• They are both Unix based. If you don’t know what this means, never mind. ;-)
• Both have special folders called Documents or Library for each user (macOS) or App (iOS)
• Both may sync content with the cloud by using iCloud

Differences:

• While the security (who can access which folders) on macOS is relatively lax, on iOS it is extremely strict.
• The absolute paths for key folders in macOS, such as your home folder, don’t change every time you boot your Mac. On iOS, on the other hand, the absolute path for key folders will change.